Annual report

44
Annual Report 
2022

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Red Crescent adopted the resolution 
Time to 
act: Tackling epidemics and pandemics together
. 
The IFRC works with National Societies on 
initiatives related to community and institu-
tional epidemic preparedness, immunization 
for COVID-19 and other vaccine-preventable 
diseases, the provision of water, sanitation and 
hygiene facilities, community-based surveillance, 
and community engagement and accountability. 
It also supports preparedness and response 
to outbreaks, through DREF and emergency 
appeals and the deployment of Emergency 
Response Units. It influences global health secu-
rity policy debates to advocate for system-wide 
strategic investments in the preparedness of 
communities and first responders, supports 
National Societies to advise governments to 
establish robust disaster-related legal frame-
works for the management of public health 
emergencies, and provides tools and guidance 
with the membership to guide community and 
institutional preparedness for disease outbreaks. 
The IFRC supports the implementation of pro-
grammes to strengthen community epidemic 
and pandemic preparedness, with 27 countries 
engaged as of end 2022. 
Tools and approaches developed through pro-
grammes and response operations are shared 
with the membership, with a training package 
on Epidemic Preparedness and Response in 
Communities and an online Epidemic Control 
Toolkit for volunteers and managers: 
https://
epidemics.ifrc.org
released in 2022. Close 
coordination with other health units, as well as 
policy, disaster law, community engagement 
and accountability and National Society prepar-
edness teams have ensured synergies and the 
harmonization of tools, approaches and guid-
ance for the IFRC network.
Community health
Community health is a priority area for the IFRC, 
which works to expand access to quality health 
services and ensure communities are engaged 
and empowered to address those health issues 
which affect them. IFRC community health 
programmes are designed to ensure hard to 
reach and socially distanced populations are 
not left behind. The main areas of focus include 
first aid, mental health and psychosocial support, 
immunization, addressing the health needs to 
people on the move, climate’s effects on health, 
and non-communicable diseases such as diabe-
tes and heart disease.
National Societies are supported to deliver 
health services through IFRC’s Regional, Cluster 
and Country Offices. The unit works with various 
normative bodies such as WHO, US CDC and 
academia to develop and disseminate opera-
tional guidance for membership in the form of; 
toolkits, training (both in person and virtually), 
webinars and implementation guidelines.
The team also works to capture lessons learned 
and examples of better practice and dissemi-
nate those across the IFRC network. The unit 
also works to support peer to peer learning by 
sponsoring exchange visits between National 
Societies.
In 2022, IFRC’s malaria programme supported 
22 countries to distribute 190 million bed 
nets to prevent malaria saving an estimated 
190,000 lives.
Mental health and psychosocial support services
The IFRC supports National Societies to develop 
their capacity for delivering mental health and 
psychosocial support services (MHPSS), to 
ensure that individuals have access to these 
when and where most needed. 
The key objective is to support National Societies 
to increase the number of people with access to 
mental health services and operationalize the IFRC 
mental health framework through task-shifting 
and further development of scalable mental 
health and psychosocial support interventions.
The 192 member National Societies, with support 
from the IFRC and IFRC Psychosocial Centre, 
provide a variety of services and programmes 
to address the mental health and psychosocial 
support needs of communities around the 
world. Addressing mental health and psychosocial